Day 2 and 3: 30,000 steps in the Search for the Unknown

Sometimes it’s great to wake up in the morning and be ignorant about the proceedings of the day. You sit and enjoy your cup of tea while someone else plans the entire day for you. Day 2 at Copenhagen demanded only one thing from me – to get ready for the day. While Harsh’s acquaintance, who we became friends with by the end of the day, Isa Oli had the day planned out for us, while our only job was to meet her at the Copenhagen Station.

Isa brought her friend and ex-colleague Stephanie along, and we went to see the famous bronze statue of The Little Mermaid. This iconic statue is more than a 100 years old, and it sits on a rock symbolizing Denmark – you may find its picture on many souvenirs in gift shops. Isa told us that the statue’s original head was once sawn off and a replacement was required to be made.

It was a great day for us - although every place in the city is beautiful, right from trivial things like the traffic to the greenery around, we visited some really important places. I saw windmills from a distance which made me all cheered up since I had always wanted to see one. Then there was the Amalionborg Palace where the Danish royal family lives, the Danish Embassy, the Opera House, and of course, great food at Papiroen. We not only crossed a bridge that was capable of opening up to let ships pass by but we also saw one opening and closing.

But apart from all the sight-seeing I was amazed also by how helpful Isa and Stephanie were in showing us around. I fail to understand why I see greatness amidst strangers and not amidst people I know really well. Is it that I take them for granted? They say we know the value of a person only when they’re gone, and I often understand people more in retrospect then when I am actually with them. I apologize too late; I realize the reasons too late. I am a difficult person when it comes to “dealing” with people. When it comes to places, most of the spellings of the places mentioned here in the blog are wrong because I just failed to find the Danish O easily and I am too sleepy to make an effort for the same.

Yesterday (Day 2) made us walk for 30000 steps; when in MDI, the maximum I walk is 12000 steps in a day and my average is 8000. By the end of the day I was tired by all the walking and needed a bed soon. Somehow, Vinay was not at all tired even by midnight and he wished we weren’t too. Thankfully Harsh’s shoes hurt (as evil as it sounds for me to be thankful about it) and we decided we were done for the day.

If you have taken an ISIC card for your Euro trip or are planning to take one, I might want to inform you that we could not avail any discount yet – not at Tivoli Gardens, not at Rosenborg Castle, not at Studenthuset.

The best Danish word I learnt is Tak that stands for “Thank You” – an utterly cute and simple word for conveying a simple meaning which we make so complex, so less said, so less heard. Today (Day 3) we just walked around the Central part of the city, mostly because I didn’t have enough energy left, and enjoyed some hot chocolate in the evening in one of the TGIFs. I tried some Danish cuisines like Smørrebrod (an open sandwich) and Kløbenboller both involved bread, while the former was bread with vegetables and topped with fillet fish, pickle herring or vegetables and mashed potatoes, the latter is embedded with raisins and cherries.

It’s a beautiful place and the best thing for a person like me who can’t cross a road in India without disturbing at least one more soul, is the traffic rules that are followed by the book. The days are long and nights are silent- so silent that it’s almost creepy to sit alone at home doing nothing. Today it rained all day, churning out various thoughts and emotions in me. While yesterday was a happy day, today was more of a conversational one.

A disappointment I created for myself was of assuming, which I remember discussing with a college-mate Gautam, that things are going to change – I’d get more time to think, I’d get more time alone, it would be transformational. I was disappointed to find that my thoughts and behaviour are still the same; well, I can’t expect things to change overnight anyway. Probably this trip can still turn out to be transformational or maybe this would be nothing but another long vacation full of various experiences – my assumptions will only put a lot of pressure on Europe, ain’t it?